"Alvarcus Mar." Orochimaru pins me in an intensely blank glare.
We're sitting in his office. He's behind an impressive desk with a very detailed map of the surrounding area covering the entire wall behind him. He has his hands laced together and arms forming a temple before him on the desk. His face is one of blankness, I can't read him at all. I don't know if he's mad, or happy, or curious. He's entirely void of all emotion.
I'm across from him in the center of the room. He has sat me down in a very uncomfortable wooden chair. I feel like I'm being interrogated.
"Yes, that would be me." I reply with mirrored indifference.
"Explain." He smoothly demands of me without letting his glare waiver.
"I would but I don't know what you mean. Can you please be more specific?"
"My shinobi." Orochimaru calmly specifies. "Why are three of my shinobi scarred for life?"
"Because the fourth one got away." I growl out. "Sasuke is crafty, he managed to cut through my webs using a unique shape change to lightning chakra to make it into a blade. Which is annoying since it's him that deserves to be punished the most."
"That is not what I meant." Orochimaru lets a hint of a smile leak through his cold indifferent mask. He's not mad at me. Whew, that could have been bad! "What did you do to scar them? I need ideas for my disciplinary program."
"Are you sure you want to know?" I let a smile dance on my face. It's not a warm and friendly look, it's one that promises pain and anguish.
...
Flashback
"Sakon. Kidomaru. Jirobo. Sasuke." I address each shinobi one at a time.
The four cocoons are suspended from the ceiling and are slowly swinging back and forth like pendulums. Over and over they rock back and forth, never ending in their movements. To top it all off, they're upside down. They're hanging from their feet. They've been caught in the spider's web.
"I'm so glad you all volunteered to help me with this."
I slowly, agonizingly slowly, reach into my coat.
"You see, I am actually a lot alike with Orochimaru-sama. We each have ideas, crazy and slightly unethical ideas, that we want to test. And I've recently had one bouncing around in my head that's just begging to be tested."
As I withdraw my hand each of the four shinobi are riveted to it. They're wondering what horrors await. What kind of torture device am I going to pull out. It's nothing so outlandish, it's just an innocent storage scroll.
Sasuke's bundle starts to flail. He has seen this scroll before, he knows what is hidden inside it.
"Yet unlike Orochimaru I don't pick my test subjects at random. No, that's not my style. To me someone has to earn this treatment, they must deserve it."
I unroll the scroll and spark some chakra into it.
"So I thank you for volunteering for this. I'll make sure that you provide me with as much information as possible."
Out of the smoke of the innocent storage scroll appears various items. A rake, two watermelons, a lotof plastic sheets, precisely 13.75 meters of rope, a rubber ball and a wheelbarrow.
"Dammit." I start to rifle through the numerous pockets on my coat. "I know I have matches around here somewhere. I can't not have matches for this, they're very important."
The sound of electricity resonates through the air. It's quickly followed by the sound of fabric being severed and someone sprinting away as fast as they possibly can.
"How unfortunate. I've lost a test subject." My eyes settle on the frozen remaining shinobi. "I suppose I can make do without him."
Shadows dance along my face as a creep towards the suspended shinobi with unadulterated sadistic glee. "Shall we begin?"
...
"Perhaps not." Orochimaru decides after a moment of consideration. "It would be unbecoming of me to steal your techniques from you. This one shall remain yours."
"Well, I suppose that's alright." I let my sinister persona fade and replace it with my usual self. "So what's up with you?"
"Besides having to book therapy sessions – which is something I've never had to do before – nothing unusual or noteworthy has happened since we last talked."
"Lame. Eh whatever. So I can't help but notice that map of yours." I point at the huge wall spanning map.
"Yes? There's nothing special about it, it's just a map." Orochimaru raises an eyebrow at me in question.
"Well duh." I sassily say and his raised eyebrow starts to twitch. "It's not the map I care about but what's on it. See that island off to the east of us?" I get up from my chair and walk over to the wall and tap a specific island.
"Yes, what about it?" Orochimaru asks.
"Is it important?" I casually ask as if we're discussing pleasantries over a good meal.
"Is it important? What kind of a question is that?" Orochimaru gets up and joins me at the map. "That specific one is, it is where I run wartime simulations with my shinobi. I have various types of buildings and altering terrains all set up. The shinobi have taken to calling the simulations the War Games, it's rather fun to watch them struggle like mindless sheep to earn my praise. This one in the south east is not. There isn't even a human presence there at all, it's too small to support humans and the luxuries that they've grown to enjoy."
"Cool. So you don't mind removing it from the map then." My casual tone throws Orochimaru for a loop. "Especially since it might get blown up soon."
"You're going to blow up an island?" He asks in surprise. "But why? What goal does that serve?"
"I've never really tested myself on just how far I can go." I offer up an innocent shrug.
"Really? I've seen your techniques, your more destructive jutsu. I've even had one of your strongest attacks, if not the strongest attack you have, targeted at me. And you say that you still haven't truly seen just how far you can push yourself?"
"Well... no. There's always been some form of collateral around. Particularly people. I can't throw around earth shattering jutsu when I have a teammate right next to me. It has forced me to limit myself."
"Interesting. And why not use one of the numerous training grounds I have here? That island is a few kilometers away and barely ten square kilometers big, surely that is an inconvenience."
"It is an inconvenience, but it's one that is necessary. The training fields are too small, too fragile. Take one of my more impressive jutsu for example, let's say Devouring Earth. I can't test that at my maximum because I could bring the roof down on my head at the least. At the worst I could destroy a chunk of this base. Who knows, maybe I could take down all of it. That's just one. So how about False Darkness, well if I really juice that one up it could pierce through a lot of walls. Like all the walls. Then there's -"
"You've made your point." Orochimaru cuts me off. "You may use the island. Just try to not draw too much attention to it, I do need this base to remain hidden from the public."
"Yay! This is great, I've even got some ideas for variations on a couple of my jutsu and just whole new jutsus altogether! Not to mention working on my combination jutsus, they're in a whole different league! It'll be the perfect place to work on them since it's uninhabited. I don't have to worry about breaking anything." I happily skip out of the room.
"Well at least he's eager to improve." Orochimaru turns back to his desk. "Reminds me of myself when I was younger, only unconsciousness would keep me from my work."
...
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